A Manifesto For Contemporary Realism

A Manifesto For Contemporary Realism:

Recording for history, creating diagrams of the day to day. In recording animate objects, there inevitably comes the knowledge that they will eventually become inanimate… I enjoy the idea of representing life to celebrate life.

This is my visual recording.

I am highly aware of working within a European tradition, but I believe tradition is pointless if it exists for its own sake. It amounts to no more than the misplaced reverence of the dead. However, traditional craft is an invaluable tool for the visual storyteller, whether satirist or celebrant.

The history of Western figuration represents a visual lingua franca, invaluable for manipulation in storytelling. Working within and right up to the bounds of history and tradition can serve to point to its omissions and failures. One merit of figuration is its accessibility. Humans naturally relate to representations of themselves and their created environment, and thus they can be a vehicle for conveying empathy and comparison because of self-recognition.

Portraiture and the figure

Drawing and painting are central to my practice, but my love of creating and learning leads me to embrace many different media. What remains consistent is my interest in portraiture and the human figure. It may be akin to the Renaissance ideal of placing man at the centre of the universe; in any case, it serves to communicate shared experience.

My focus on the male figure may invert centuries of art history, but is a purely instinctive response in choice of subject. Some of the themes I naturally explore are relationships, love and day to day life, situations (or the pursuit of such situations) which are common to us all, and which have untold power over our lives.

Conceptualism and craft

Personal involvement, labour and precision are very important to me. I try to incorporate my experience in varied fine and applied art media to my work, blurring the lines between them to point to their equality in the hands of the artist, and to my personal vision through the control I exert over them.

I could never be a purely conceptual artist; Victorian concepts of value and virtue having been ingrained in me by my upbringing preclude such a line, in my case.

Personally, I have an irresistible need to create.

For me, the value of art is bound in its craft. Value, being subjective, is at once a risible concept, yet of the highest importance to humankind. The exploration of worth and perceived value is an ongoing part of my wider artistic practice.

My version of realism

I am a realist. This is accurate, not only in referring to my traditionally naturalistic depiction of figures and objects, but in that I depict people, situations and conversations that have existed and that may be recognizable to many.

As the reality of life in the western world now means the pervasion of digital technology, its depiction within my artwork is unavoidable, perhaps necessary.

The co-existence of the highly polished, intangible, artificial world with the frail, fleshy, inescapable humanity is something that I find extremely interesting.

The souvenirs of choice for lovers may no longer be painted portraits or even printed photographs but digital images; but as long as we are human, their conversion into tangible objects, with physical presences, will be irresistible.

Precedent

The story behind this drawing – a piece that is unique in my practice – is simple; it was made purely from a need to try. It was based on an old sketch I had done a decade before, and as I had changed so much in the intervening time, it felt fitting to revisit that image and make it into something more meaningful.

The title – Precedent – refers directly to the original drawing that preceded it, but also to all of the time I had spent sewing to try to earn a living as a single parent, setting the precedent for working with polycotton thread.

Experimenting

One essential part of my working method is to indulge my curiosity, to break away from my preferred media and experiment with materials.

Textiles

Monochrome prints are a traditional extension of my drawings, but although drawing in yarn and thread may appear to be a digression in style, they hold much expressive potential. The physical process of puncturing canvas or fabric with a bodkin, and the deliberate placement of line, can create a real energy and tension in a yarn drawn piece.

Machine stitching

Machine stitch drawing seemed to be a natural interpretation for a sketch of myself I had done just before marrying and moving to another part of the world.

Thread was the most apt vehicle for depicting the intervening years, which had been largely spent immersed in textile work. The commercial connotations of the thread as well as the process of machine stitching tell their own story, and juxtapose with the colour and expression of the figure.

Finding the right materials to create a shortcut to a narrative is extremely rewarding.

Interdimensionality

Consisting of lines with no substrate fabric or ground, the drawing and surface are one and the same. The delicacy of the mesh and fragile lines, which can move slightly within the grid, give an air of sadness and loss to this drawing.

Mounted away from a surface, the threads cast shadows, line and background become one, and the two dimensional drawing becomes sculptural.

I like the fact that, without its frame, this piece could simply be crumpled or folded like any other fabric. Its flimsiness as well as its hidden strength as an interconnected fabric makes me think of it as a metaphor for life, and not just my own.

Re: Presentation

Is this my best side?

For some artists, the attempt to package an image of themselves for the world can be maddening; for others, it may come as a natural extension of their practice.

Performing the role of artist may be difficult for some because of the unclear nature of the boundaries of this role in contemporary society – self-representing artists need to create work, maintain a cohesive practice, write statements about themselves and their work, and market themselves through social media.

The influence of academia on contemporary art practice leaves many feeling unable to write convincingly about their right to a seat at the table without resorting to obfuscating artspeak (been there).

Those who feel more at ease with marketing may feel happy to wear lots of hats at once; those who don’t may feel disadvantaged by their natural discomfiture.

To PhD or not to PhD

Personally, I often question whether I’m going the right way: I’ve ended up with a crazy mix of academic writing and traditional portraiture skills, with a magpie selection of media thrown in as well. I genuinely love researching and writing, but I thrive on making. This caused more than a bit of internal conflict when I did an art theory MA that had very little art in it anywhere.

Every year, it seems as though I find a PhD scholarship or studentship that makes me sit up and have a crisis of direction. This happens although I’ve already decided that a career as an academic is neither likely because of my age and circumstances, nor is it what I really want… so why am I tempted?

It’s because I was raised to believe that getting academic qualifications was the way to prove your value in this world. Although I don’t believe that now, childhood training is hard to forget.

I believe that the art world is overly obsessed with proving itself through rigid external structures, either through auction house prices or scholarly qualifications. Surely the best way of proving yourself as an artist is in making your own art.

Polymath or hot mess

The question remains unanswered for me: which is my best side? I still have a mistrust of marketing, but I know that the best practice for artists looking to establish themselves is to develop a visual language or style… to work in a specific category or medium, work in series – develop a thing, a hook or gimmick, to be blunt. But that doesn’t always seem to come naturally to me. Obviously, people are my main “thing”, but they aren’t my only interest.

I don’t buy into notions of singular authenticity and purity in art practice. If anything, I came to dislike the rules for “serious” art practice that I came across whilst studying.

I like to call myself a polymath because it sounds better than saying I have shiny object syndrome. The fact is, I love writing, and not just about art; I love drawing, painting, carving, building, printing and coming up with empires in my head that never make it past my notebook.

So I’ll stick with polymath, or whatever helps me make the art I want to make whenever I want to make it.

Fight

Fight – a painting about masculinity and vulnerability combined.

“Fight” encapsulates the conflict between the portrayal of outwardly brutal masculinity with the vulnerability of the body affected by violence.

Fight, oil on paper painting by Lee Devonish, 2016. Masculinity and vulnerability. — Fight. Oil on paper, 2016.

In/Out of the series

It is part of what I call the muscle series, but as a portrait it stands outside of the main body of the group, not depicting the body or muscularity.

The idea of the series is to look at the body under transformation – the product of a lot of very hard work in addition to any underlying capability.

Trauma

But this painting doesn’t focus on the body; instead, it focuses on the face and picks up on a point of apparent trauma. I could reveal the source of the injury, but perhaps it would be better to leave the air of mystery surrounding the event, with only the title to serve as a clue.

There’s clearly been some dramatic, violent event that has left its evidence, and it’s this visual punctuation that punches the macho façade of the strongman and shows vulnerability.

Movie men

But strength and vulnerability in men as depicted in visual culture are strangely contradictory, as often the transcending, larger-than-life heroes of the cheesiest action movies are the ones who are physically pummelled and beaten to ragged, bloody shreds. (Yes, I’m a child of the 80’s.) I wondered if women found these male types appealing as they are softened by pain and suffering, and if men also found these types appealing because of their transcendence over pain and suffering – it’ll likely be a combination.

It later occurred to me that some men just like to fight.

Masculinity and vulnerability

So this picture grew from the concept of fighting for the purpose of acting out that “hero masculinity” – seeking out and wearing wounds to display strength to society.

It’s now available in my store, and some prints are available at Zazzle.

Fight – oil painting canvas print
by LeeDevonish

Perspective

Graphite on paper, 2011

I’ve always been attached to my artworks – I don’t churn them out, and I feel a strong sense of reluctance when it comes to selling them. There are a few that I’ll never sell though, and Perspective is one of them.

Drawing children

Children grow and change so quickly, and capturing them on a smartphone screen is understandably something that parents today can’t resist. (If you don’t have a baby bore on one of your social media feeds, then it’ll be you.)

None of our images are fixed, but their images are more precious because of being in such rapid transition. Speaking of rapid, it’s incredibly hard to draw children (or at least a child like mine) from life, as they’re constantly in motion and cannot sit still if they’re told to.

Still, drawing your child is a strange and enlightening experience. You’re able to employ and enjoy your love for them in an entirely new way.

The Arboretum

The image I used for this artwork came from a photograph I took of my son when we were in Boston, MA in 2010. It was the first time I’d been able to travel to the USA in 10 years due to visa restrictions on Barbadian citizens, and the first time I’d been able to take my son to visit his grandmother at her house.

On this day we took the bus to Arnold Arboretum alone. It was a good day for it – sunny and warm. When I think about it now, there aren’t many details, which is a bit sad; me, looking at horticultural labels and picking out postcards for souvenirs, and my little boy constantly racing ahead of me.

We reached a pond and stopped, and I snapped a picture of him looking out over the water. The photograph itself was nice enough, but I don’t know exactly what it was that made it stand out so much in my mind.

Water

There’s the combination of dread whenever water and children come together, along with the way the water and the rippling patterns on its surface captured us both. It was a beautiful scene, but the idea of this young life spread out before us like the surface of the water (with so much unseen going on underneath) must have stuck with me.

I remembered us experiencing this and wondered about his perspective on the world.

The drawing itself is simple and sparse, with a lot left out, but that leaves the focus on the little boy and the setting before him, which may or may not even be water if you look at it for long enough.

This is one that I won’t ever sell. This memory feels as though it was yesterday, but looking at my child today, the boy in the drawing seems so small… at least I’ve caught that day for myself.

This drawing is available as a print from my Zazzle store.